Have you ever opened your mailbox and found a puppy wearing two Rolexes with an envelope tied around its little furry puppy neck that contains directions to the hangar that contains the private jet that's going to fly you to Maui, and then you fly to Maui and there's a guy in a 1968 Cadillac Eldorado there to pick you up and drive you to your beach house on Keawakapu beach and then he tells you the Eldorado is for you and it's Rhino-lined inside so you can hose it out when you get sand and sunscreen all over it and then when you pull up to your beach mansion there's a convertible 1970's Ford Bronco sitting there and it's all Rhino-lined too and it's also yours and then when you walk into your new mansion there's another puppy there to play with the first puppy that flew with you due to the fact that all the necessary paperwork had already been completed to get a puppy into a closed ecosystem such as Maui and this new playmate puppy also has an envelope and when you open it, it's your contract for your new TV show that you're going to host and the TV show is about music or whatever you want it to be about and then you realize you don't really even like Rolexes and then Mila Kunis and Evangeline Lily walk up from the beach and say they love Rolexes and would like you to trade your new puppy leg Rolexes for all new dive gear with underwater scooters, a couple surf boards, a large catamaran with dedicated mooring, and a couple fresh guava and you think that doesn't really sound like an equitable trade but they insist and then they tell you they live next door and even though you're married and your wife came with you and the puppy and your current dog, you're still pumped they live next door because it's awesome and your wife doesn't get all butt-hurt because other hot women exist in the world?

Have you?

I'm not gonna say that's what it was like to see Umphree's McGee last night on an 80 degree summer night in KC, but my point is, it was a really unexpected treat. I hope I made my point.

I'm not sure if this was a co-headlining situation, but the font size of the two band names on the tickets were the same, and I would say the size of the crowd was the same when we got there as when we left, which I took to indicate the excitement was just as high for UM as it was for STS9.

This was founded.

Here is a list of bands my brother and I were reminded of as we watched UM play:

These are just the ones I can remember. There were more. If I were STS9, I would consider a less badass opener. And I don't say that because STS9 wasn't good. They were really good. A perfectly cooked, buttery filet mignon from Ruth's Chris is quite a delight, but it's less of a delight after eating a large Emo's pizza. What I'm saying is only morbidly fat people fully enjoyed the entire show to its fullest. No I'm not.

Speaking of fat people, my brother was vomited upon. It was one of the funniest things I've experienced in a long time. I can't really accurately explain why it was so magically hilarious to me, but here's a brief rundown...

I notice him first. Fat beardo carrying a beer walking towards us and away from the stage. He kinda stumbles 15 feet away from us and spit-pukes a dainty, foamy beer stream that I thought was probably the result of accidentally getting some beer in his breathe hole instead of his swallow hole. It didn't look like a full reversal. I ease back a half step. My brother now sees him. My brother is closer to him than me. My brother has on flops. I have on regular shoes. Fat beardo knows what's happening. We do not. Fat beardo picks up the pace and closes on our coordinates and is now 8 feet away. Fat beardo has a full reversal. Straight down, faster than gravity, mostly beer, and limited in girth only by the fact that his jaw lacks the ability to unhinge to allow greater flow. The ground is all mulch. It cannot instantly absorb this broken water main violence. 8 feet is too short a distance. I am spared. My brother is not. Flops, as it turns out, were a bad choice. I knew even before I wrote this paragraph it was a "had to be there" story, but there was something about the timing of it, seeing it unfold so quickly, seeing someone (my brother) process a situation truly a moment too late to act, that truly tickled (sometimes I write words I would never utter) me in that way where you can't stop laughing. Even five minutes later.

Life can be swell.

Holy fuck I just deleted the entire second part of this review.

Fuck me.

Dammit a whole lot.

I'll half-ass try to recreate it I guess.

Umphree's McGee is not a band you can appreciate on the radio. They're harder than you think. They are decidedly un-pussy. They are business hippies. I was truly appreciative and totally surprised by their rock might. My original "this paragraph" was much writier than this.

STS9 is definitely worth the price of admission in and of themselves (I most definitely didn't use fucking "in and of themselves" the first time I wrote this). Where UM has a rock edge, STS9 has a more fluid groove. I kept thinking they are dubstep, but the whahwhamp whuh whuh whah of the dubstep drop is replaced by happy guitars.

Ok, I'm over it. My pissededness over deleting a half hour's work has overtaken my desire to recreate it half-assedly.